The Most Valuable Skill To Have…

The most important marketing lesson I learned at my first job was that “everything is marketing.” I was assigned to make an ad for a magazine. The day it hit the streets we started getting calls. I heard a customer service rep. say, “We aren’t offering that discount.” As I ran over to her desk she hung up.

We hadn’t told the customer service team that we made the ad and to expect calls on it. The service team wasn’t trained to ask questions or investigate the unknown. There wasn’t a process to share global information.

Over time, I’ve thought about this experience and have written about it several times. In “The Circle of Marketing,” and in “Hiring is Marketing,” I’ve discussed those vital traits that fall outside of the “skills” so often looked for, choosing skills that can be taught over characteristics have cost companies millions of dollars in lost productivity.

We are characters of habit and find it difficult to see the bigger picture, I get that, but we ignore, to our peril, important skills that can really help us move forward. To my above lists, I’ve added seven additional skills I feel are vital to consider when looking for a committed employee. See if you agree. They are as follows:

Candidate should know some history

Candidate should have lived outside the U.S.

Candidate should have initiative

Candidate should have served others

Candidate should show examples where she has mentored others

Candidate should show he is self-motivated

Candidate should show she is curious and excited about something (find a passion)

The most valuable skill a businessperson can have is the ability to recruit and retain good people. — Roy H. Williams